29 June 2018

II-24: Don't Be Thin-Skinned -- Armor & Scrolls, Annotated

Armor:
type of magic armor is not indicated, only pluses. When OD&D
spoke of “Armor” in relation to adventurers, it often referred to
plate-mail. If such a distinction was intended, it went unmarked by
many and magic varieties of leather, chain, and plate were
often encountered during play.

Scrolls:
on the scrolls table the explanatory text states [t]here is a 25%
chance that any scroll of spells found will contain those usable by
clerics, this text does not appear in the first printing.
Turning to page 32, both printings indicate […] [a]ll Scrolls
are spells for Magic-Users […]. Many referees of later editions
found regarded this contradiction as a simple error and allowed found
scrolls to have a the indicated chance of Cleric spells. A few
referees interpreted this to mean any Cleric spells found on spell
scrolls were usable by, and only usable by, Magic-Users. We owned the
first printing and initially did not allow Clerics to scribe spell scrolls.